From PRWeb yesterday, a loaded proposition, most likely engineered to fail. It is really difficult to taker this seriously when they use “deniers” in the headline, and doubly difficult to take seriously when they don’t define “credible” anywhere, leaving that definition open to the whims of the organizers.

To win the $5,000 bounty, a campaign challenger must provide verifiable evidence that significantly less than 95% of credible American scientists believe in the reality of global climate change and that humans are a likely cause.

My first thought was: Why would anyone want to respond to a campaign where they insult you right out of the gate? Then I realized this is nothing but propaganda, they designed it to fail.

So rather than take them up on it (which is destined to fail due to the way the don’t define “credible evidence”), it seems that the tables are turned, and a new reverse bounty has been offered. Here’s the PR headline from Truthmarket yesterday:

============================================================

Climate Change Deniers Challenged by a TruthMarket Campaign Offering a $5,000 Bounty for Proof that More than 5% of Credible American Scientists Dispute Global Climate Change

A funded campaign asserting that over 95% of American scientists believe that global climate change is real and is most likely caused by humans has been launched with a $5,000 bounty on TruthMarket, the site that enables grassroots, crowd-funding of challenges to political, commercial and science misrepresentations

Atherton, California (PRWEB) October 01, 2012

TruthMarket, a division of Truth Seal Corp., today announced that registered member, Ellen Davis, launched a campaign challenging climate change deniers to prove that more than 5% of credible American scientists dispute global warming or that it is likely caused by humans. The first person who can deliver verifiable evidence that significantly fewer than 95% of qualified American scientists believe in the reality of global climate change and that humans are a likely cause will win the $5,000 bounty.

The campaign was motivated by a recent Yale University poll showing that only 13% of Americans surveyed were aware that the vast majority of US scientists believe that climate change is real, and that humans are the most likely cause. “That is a big problem,” stated Davis. “It means that the average US citizen is confused or ignorant of what the scientific community thinks about climate change.” She adds, “This should be of concern to everyone. It is the scientific community that is most qualified to interpret the data. Either they have been ineffective in communicating and persuading the public or the deniers have bigger budgets to drown out the warnings.”

Quoting Anthony Leiserowitz of the Yale University Project on Climate Change Communication, Davis agrees with his observation that, “So far the evidence shows that the more people understand that there is this consensus, the more they tend to believe that climate change is happening, the more they understand that humans are a major contributor, and the more worried they are about it.”

To win the $5,000 bounty, a campaign challenger must provide verifiable evidence that significantly less than 95% of credible American scientists believe in the reality of global climate change and that humans are a likely cause.

About TruthMarket

TruthMarket is a division of Truth Seal, a California Corporation. TruthMarket is designed to be a popular online platform that enables everyone to campaign for truth in public dialogue. The primary objective is to increase truth and trust throughout the public information space – online and offline – by publicly exposing false claims and highlighting true claims. TruthMarket’s ultimate goal is to predispose all public dialogue toward truth telling.

Trademarks

Marketplace for Truth Telling, TruthMarket and TruthSeal are trademarks of Truth Seal Corp.

And, how many young women like her have $5000 to blow on a cause? One wonders where that money really comes from.

It seems darned fishy to me that she has no track record in climate activism that seems evident via searches, then all of the sudden puts up $5k, and she seems to be a friend of the founder of the program sponsor.

For example, in Google+ she’s a friend to the founder of the “Truthmarket”, Rick Hayes-Roth:

I generally don’t trust activist organizations that tout themselves as champions of truth in the name of the organization; history has shown me that to be just psychological projection. Given the shoddy way this campaign is put together, with no strong definitions, I have no reason to trust the principals nor the effort.

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Here’s Heartland’s Jame Taylor offering $5000 for the reverse proposition, also on PRWeb:

TruthMarket on Monday announced a campaign challenging those skeptical about catastrophic, man-caused climate change to offer proof that more than 5 percent of “credible American scientists dispute global warming or that it is likely caused by humans.” According to the campaign: “The first person who can deliver verifiable evidence that significantly fewer than 95 percent of qualified American scientists believe in the reality of global climate change and that humans are a likely cause will win the $5,000 bounty.” The Heartland Institute, which was described by The Economist this year as “the world’s most prominent think tank promoting skepticism about man-made climate change, has published essays about the “Myth of the 98%” and the so-called consensus on climate change – both by Heartland President Joseph Bast.

TruthMarket on Monday announced a campaign challenging those skeptical about catastrophic, man-caused climate change to offer proof that more than 5 percent of “credible American scientists dispute global warming or that it is likely caused by humans.” According to the campaign: “The first person who can deliver verifiable evidence that significantly fewer than 95 percent of qualified American scientists believe in the reality of global climate change and that humans are a likely cause will win the $5,000 bounty.”

The Heartland Institute, which was described by The Economist this year as “the world’s most prominent think tank promoting skepticism about man-made climate change,” has published essays about the “Myth of the 98%” and the so-called consensus on climate change – both by Heartland President Joseph Bast.

The following statement from James M. Taylor, senior fellow for environment policy at The Heartland Institute, may be used for attribution. For more comments, refer to the contact information below. To book a Heartland guest on your program, please contact Tammy Nash at tnash(at)heartland(dot)org and 312/377-4000. After regular business hours, contact Jim Lakely at jlakely(at)heartland(dot)org and 312/731-9364.

“This so-called global warming challenge reinforces the ignorance and/or willful misrepresentation of global warming extremists in the global warming debate. Most skeptics of global warming alarmism believe the Earth has modestly warmed during past century in the aftermath of the Little Ice Age, and most skeptics of global warming alarmism believe there is some human contribution to the warming. Accordingly, the so-called global warming challenge is nothing more than a straw-man tactic designed to mislead the public about the real debate.

“The true issue of contention between alarmists and skeptics is whether the Earth is likely to warm in such a rapid and catastrophic manner as to justify the economy-killing solutions advocated by global warming alarmists. I will personally pay a $5,000 bounty to the first person who can deliver verifiable evidence that 95 percent of qualified American scientists believe human-caused global warming is occurring in such a rapid and catastrophic manner as to justify the economy-killing solutions advocated by global warming alarmists.”

The Heartland Institute is a 28-year-old national nonprofit organization headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. Its mission is to discover, develop, and promote free-market solutions to social and economic problems. For more information, visit our Web site or call 312/377-4000.

===============================================================

Here’s the piece by Bast Taylor references:

You Call This Consensus?

Contrary to what you read repeatedly in daily newspapers or hear on television, most scientists do not believe there is a “scientific consensus” that man-made climate change (often labeled anthropogenic global warming, or AGW) is or will be a catastrophe. Unfortunately, the old/mainstream/dead media will be the last folks to acknowledge this, so people who dispute the “consensus” will continue to be slandered and abused for years to come.

It is important to distinguish between the statement, which is true, that there is no scientific consensus that AGW is or will be a catastrophe, and the also-true claims that the climate is changing (of course it is, it is always changing) and that most scientists believe there may be a human impact on climate (our emissions and alterations of the landscape are surely having an impact, though they are often local or regional (like heat islands) and small relative to natural variation).

The three different statements are not contradictory or mutually exclusive. Yet it is difficult to find a reporter for a major daily newspaper who understands this elementary distinction. Since reporters aren’t all stupid, we can only guess as to their motives for blurring this important distinction.

What evidence is there to support my claim? I believe it follows from a reasonable interpretation of the following evidence.

(1) The latest international survey of climate scientists by German scientists Dennis Bray and Hans von Storch found (quoting my own interpretation of their results) that “for two-thirds of the questions asked, scientific opinion is DEEPLY DIVIDED, and in half of those cases, most scientists DISAGREE with positions that are at the foundation of the alarmist case.” If you don’t believe that climate models are good enough to predict future climate conditions, for example, how can you “believe” man-made global warming will be a threat?

Unfortunately, the survey shows that disagreement and outright skepticism about the underlying science of AGW doesn’t prevent most scientists from expressing their belief that man-made global warming is a serious problem. This is the nature of a popular delusion, whereby bright people believe dumb things simply because other people believe it.

Bray and Storch are very coy in reporting and admitting the amount of disagreement their surveys find on the basic science of global warming. In an early essay in 1999, reporting on the results of their first survey, they remark on how a willingness to make predictions and recommendations about public policy that aren’t supported by actual science is a sign of “post normal science,” or the willingness to rely on “consensus” rather than actual scientific knowledge when the risks are perceived as being great. This is little different from what I have been calling the “global warming delusion.”

(2) I found pretty much the same thing in an analysis I did of Bray and von Storch’s 2003 survey. That survey found that only 9.4 percent “strongly agreed” and 25.3 percent “agreed” with the statement “climate change is mostly the result of anthropogenic causes.” Some 10.2 percent “strongly disagreed.” Fewer than half the scientists surveyed agreed that “natural scientists have established enough physical evidence to turn the issue of global climate change over to social scientists for matters of policy discussion.” Only 18.6 percent said they believed global warming skeptics receive “too much coverage.”

(3) A 2010 survey of meteorologists found that 63 percent believe global warming is caused mostly by natural causes, and only 31 percent believe humans are primarily responsible.

(4) Another 2010 survey of meteorologists, this one published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, found only one in four American Meteorological Society broadcast meteorologists agrees with United Nations’ claims that humans are primarily responsible for recent global warming.

(5) The often-mocked but never refuted “Petition Project” has, since 2007, been signed by more than 31,072 American scientists, including 9,021 with Ph.D.s. The petition says, in part, “There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate.” There is no comparable survey attesting to a widespread embrace of the alarmist position.

(7) The results of a less scientific survey were announced on the Web site of Scientific American, itself a publication with a highly biased coverage of environmental issues. Only 26 percent of readers of Scientific American responded to the magazine’s online poll saying they believe human emissions are causing global warming.

(8) Even Phil Jones, a prominent alarmist and central figure in the Climategate scandal, doesn’t believe there is a scientific consensus or that recent temperature trends are unusual. In an interview published by BBC News, Phil Jones was asked, “When scientists say ‘the debate on climate change is over’, what exactly do they mean — and what don’t they mean?” Jones responded, “I don’t believe the vast majority of climate scientists think this. This is not my view.”

Jones also acknowledged that recent warming (beginning in 1975 after three decades of cooling global temperatures) is not unprecedented, and is similar to warming periods that occurred from 1860 – 1880 and from 1910 – 1940. Asked about the global temperature trend since 1995, Jones asserted there is no statistically significant warming since 1995. Asked about the global temperature trend since 2002, Jones acknowledged global cooling, but said it is not statistically significant.

(9) One searches in vain for contrary data in support of a “scientific consensus” or the catastrophic forecasts. It certainly can’t be found in Naomi Oreskes imaginative counting of journal articles that appeared, in the non-peer reviewed letters section of Nature in 2004. A no-less rigorous study by Benny Peiser that attempted to replicate her results searched the abstracts of 1,117 scientific journal articles on “global climate change” found only 13 (1 percent) explicitly endorse the “consensus view” while 34 reject or cast doubt on the view that human activity has been the main driver of warming over the past 50 years. According to Peiser: “My analysis also shows that there are almost three times as many abstracts that are sceptical of the notion of anthropogenic climate change than those that explicitly endorse it.”

(10) A few years later, in 2008, Environment & Energy published research by medical researcher Dr. Klaus-Martin Schulte, who used the same database and search terms as Oreskes to examine papers published from 2004 to February 2007. (Note that DeSmogBlog reported in 2007 that E&E rejected the study and apparently never corrected its error.) According to the publication’s abstract:

The state of the scientific consensus about climate change was studied by a review of the 539 papers on “global climate change” found on the Web of Science database from January 2004 to mid-February 2007, updating research by Oreskes, who had reported that between 1993 and 2003 none of 928 scientific papers on “global climate change” had rejected the consensus that more than half of the warming of the past 50 years was likely to have been anthropogenic. In the present review, 31 papers (6 percent of the sample) explicitly or implicitly reject the consensus. Though Oreskes said that 75 percent of the papers in her former sample endorsed the consensus, fewer than half now endorse it. Only 7 percent do so explicitly. Only one paper refers to “catastrophic” climate change, but without offering evidence. There appears to be little evidence in the learned journals to justify the climate-change alarm that now harms patients.

(11) What of the claim that “all” of the scientific bodies of the world endorse alarmism? Leaders of these groups are typically more political than scientific and they can be depended on to voice the current politically correct views on issues that attract government funding. They also do not poll their members before issuing statements. Even with all this in mind, it’s notable that the Polish Academy of Sciences does not endorse the “consensus” claims.

Britain’s Royal Society, France’s National Academy of Sciences, and India’s National Action Plan on Climate Change have all recently expressed skepticism or embraced important parts of the skeptics’ position.

The leaders of the world’s national science academies are expressing the same “cognitive dissonance” as the individual scientists that Bray and von Storch’s surveyed: they say they “believe” in AGW and fear its consequences, but they are skeptical of the scientific claims that must be true to support that belief. The Amsterdam-based InterAcademy Council (IAC), which is made up of the presidents of many of the world’s national science academies, conducted an audit of the IPCC in 2010. It found that the IPCC doesn’t properly peer review its reports, the selection of scientists who participate is politicized, the summary for policymakers is the product of negotiation among governments and is not written by scientists, and more. IAC recommends structural reforms to fix IPCC’s flaws before IPCC’s next report, due in 2014.

So the public declarations of national science academies may reflect the broader opinions and fears of politicians and scientists, but it is not an endorsement of the underlying science, and cannot be construed as evidence that the science is sound. The leaders of those very organizations have stated publicly that they do not believe the science is sound.

(12) What of the claim that the “3,000 scientists” who participated in production of the IPCC’s 2007 report believe in AGW? The IAC report described in (11) demolishes the credibility of that body, validating what climate realists have been saying for years. The IPCC is a political body, not a scientific body, and its reports are political documents. But just as important, the number refers to the number of scientists and environmental activists who participated in any way in the IPCC, often as reviewers of a single section of a single chapter. They cannot be assumed to endorse the reports’ conclusions because they were never asked. In public comments, many reviewers say they do not, in fact, endorse the IPCC’s conclusions. Very few scientists helped write or review Chapter 9, which addressed the critical issue of attribution – what causes climate change. John McLean found that only 60 scientists help write or commented favorably on that chapter during peer review.

So when someone says the IPCC reports are proof of a scientific consensus on AGW, you should say “the IPCC is proof that 60 scientists believe in AGW, no more and no less than that.”

(13) What of the claim that “97% of climate scientists believe in AGW”? The origin of this spurious claim is a 2009 online survey of scientists by two University of Illinois professors who claimed to have found that 75 out of 77 climate scientists (yes, only 77 climate scientists!) answered yes to this question: “Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?” The sample size is bizarrely small – more about that in a moment — and the question itself is meaningless. Most “skeptics” believe “human activity” – which includes everything from clearing forests to make way for crops to the urban heat islands created by cities – is having some impact on global temperatures. This survey tells us nothing about the real issue about which AGW advocates claim a consensus, that human emissions of greenhouse gases are causing catastrophic climate change.

Regarding the sample size … according to Lawrence Solomon, the two researchers who produced the survey deliberately left out solar scientists, space scientists, cosmologists, physicists, meteorologists, and astronomers … all scientists likely to be aware of natural causes of climate change. Only scientists employed by governments or universities were chosen to be surveyed, introducing another source of bias. Of the 10,000 or so scientists left, about 3,000 replied to the 2-minute online survey. No surprise, 82% of that unrepresentative sample answered yes to the ambiguous question. The authors then looked at a subset of just 77 scientists who participated in the survey and were successful in getting more than half their papers accepted by peer-reviewed climate science journals and found that 75 of those answered “yes.” 75/77 = 97%.

This may be how sausage is made, but it is not how accurate surveys are conducted. The “97% of climate scientists” claim is garbage. Anyone who cites it ought to be ashamed.

First off, by alarmist definition, isn’t any scientist who disagrees with the AGW premise not credible?
Secondly, given the first point, who determines the universe of “credible scientists”?
Third, only the merest, slightest possibility of the two sides agreeing on a universe of “credible scientists” prevents this from being a challenge to prove a negative.
Fourth, the world’s population of “credible scientists” can’t much exceed… what, 500,000? With that as a starting number, one only needs 25,000 to maybe sign a petition claiming non-belief in the AGW premise. Anyone got a petition with a few tens of thousands of anti-alarmist signatures laying about anywhere?

The first person who can deliver verifiable evidence that significantly fewer than 95% of qualified American scientists believe in the reality of global climate change and that humans are A LIKELY cause will win the $5,000 bounty.

“A” meaning one of many
“LIKELY” meaning without proof, only that it is near the top of the list of things to consider.
“reality of global climate change” – unspecified to how big or even its direction or type.
Good heavens, 97% of rabid skeptics can probably agree with the above statement.
Don’t play in their ball park. Change the venue.
The first person who can deliver verifiable evidence that significantly fewer than 95% of qualified American scientists believe in the reality of global climate change and that non-human natural processes are A LIKELY cause will win the $5,000 bounty.
Getting a list of the qualified american scientists that don’t believe that will be money well spent.

In 2007, Harris Interactive surveyed 489 randomly selected members of either the American Meteorological Society or the American Geophysical Union for the Statistical Assessment Service (STATS) at George Mason University. The survey found 97% agreed that global temperatures have increased during the past 100 years; 84% say they personally believe human-induced warming is occurring, and 74% agree that “currently available scientific evidence” substantiates its occurrence. Only 5% believe that human activity does not contribute to greenhouse warming; and 84% believe global climate change poses a moderate to very great danger.

The challenge is

The first person who can deliver verifiable evidence that significantly fewer than 95% of qualified American scientists believe in the reality of global climate change and that humans are a likely cause will win the $5,000 bounty.

It seems to me the challenge is met by the statement “84% say they personally believe human-induced warming is occurring, and 74% agree that “currently available scientific evidence” substantiates its occurrence“. After all, I can agree to human contribution without agreeing that “humans are the likely cause” just like about 20% of those scientists included in the Harris poll.

This really is a tough one, as noted. The warmists must define “credible scientist”, must define how many are such eligible scientists to be counted, define what amount of the current warming is attributable to human generated CO2, and define how much warming is taking place.
As to the projected temp rise and CO2, I think we’d agree that the IPCC narrative with Hansen’s temp history would do. So the questions could be:
Re: Beliefs in Global Warming as CO2 increases as occurring currently will cause high levels of temperature rises and consequent catastrophic impacts on the Earth’s biosphere,
A) Based on recent history and projections of current patterns of human production of CO2, particularly the burning of fossil fuels (oil, natural gas and coal):
1. Do you have certainty that the temperatures will rise at least 2.5C more between now and 2100?
2. Do you have certainty > 80% of this temperature rise be caused by CO2 increases between now and 2100?
3. Do you have certainty the fossil fuel that humans burn is responsible for > 80% of the CO2 increases between now and 2100?
4. Do you have certainty that the temperature rise of at least 2.5C by 2100 will cause a rise of sea-level by 2100 of at least 1.0 m?
5) Do you have certainty that the current state of atmospheric science with regard to “global warming” is “settled”, and
6) Do you have certainty that the IPCC proposed computer models of temperature rises by 2100 of greater than an additional 2.5C are “certain”?
5) In summary: Do you have certainty
a) that the IPCC modelled, human-generated CO2 from fossil fuels will cause catastrophic changes in the world’s biosphere, and specficially that of man, such that
b) by 2100 temperature and sea-level rises will cause the deaths of millions of people,
c) the termination of much land and animal life,
d) the deaths of the oceans, including the coral reefs,
e) the loss of alpine glaciers,
f) a large and sustained melting of the Greenland and Antarctic glaciers,
g) the loss of >95% of Arctic and Antarctic summer ice?
B) As for your claim to be a “credible” scientist with respect to the question of Global Warming:
1. Do you now or did you formerly work as a meteorologist?
2. Do you now or did you formerly work in climatology?
3. Do you now or did you formerly work in glaciology?
4. Do you have university level training in atmospheric physics?
5. Do you have university level training in the physical sciences that enable you to technically understand the principles of atmospheric physics or climatology?
6. Do you have university level training or industry-relevant expertise in computer modelling sufficient to technically understand the results of IPCC climate modelling?
7. Are you a geologist with a technical understanding of prior climates?
Would a survey based on this sort of breakdown of beliefs and appropriate knowledge suffice? Would the results of the survey count, or would they have to be a proportion of a known number of definable “credible” scientists?
This could be good for both sides. At least for those who believe they know which is the majority and which is the minority.

The sort of blarney floated by Ellen Davis reminds me of
“Froth flotation is considered to be the most widely used method for ore beneficiation. In ore beneficiation, flotation is a process in which valuable minerals are separated from worthless material or other valuable minerals by inducing them to gather in and on the surface of a froth layer.”
Once Ellen, her colleagues, and her credible American (Why?) scientists have self-collected themselves into a froth, they can be flushed from the realm of the useful. They can all be given signs** saying “I’m stupid.” and everyone will be warned not to approach them.
~~~~~
** Bill Engvall’s “Here’s your sign”:http://www.snopes.com/humor/jokes/heresign.asp

Well, yes, the catch is that if you are a scientist and you have doubts about AGW, you are not “credible.” In other words, when the proof starts to come in and they are in danger of losing the $5k, people like Lindzen won’t qualify as “credible’ scientists.

Credible scientist? Anyone with a post graduate degree (Masters, Doctorate, PhD) in the Earth sciences, Physics or Chemistry should be educated enough to understand the present concepts.
No sociologists, psychologists etc and definately no one with qualifications in modern pseudo climate science when they are really just political spin doctors…
Of course that means a bunch of Mann’s, Hansen’s and Romm’s cronies don’t count but that’s a good thing isn’t it?

I think that this could be a shot in the foot for the warmists.
We should respond by examining what it it they are prepared to risk the measly sum of $5000 for.
They are asking for ‘verifiable’ (ie we decide what we will accept) evidence that ‘significantly’ fewer than 95% (ie less than whatever figure you propose) of ‘credible’ (ie we aren’t just accepting qualifications, they have to be our friends) American (why only American?) scientists believe in global climate change (ie any change – which everyone agrees takes place).
The only controversial part of the whole piece is ” ..and that humans are a likely cause..”. Where ‘likely’ is not defined, but is presumably less than ‘proven’. Perhaps ‘possibly’ would be the equivalent? So we have a very low cash bet where:
“You must prove in a manner we decide is valid that an unspecified number of our friends don’t believe that humans might possibly influence climate to some extent”
That looks like an unwinnable bet. In complete contrast to the famous bet made by Julian Simon where he dealt in hard data and completely demolished Paul Ehrlich. I would advertise the terms of the ‘Truthmarket’ bet widely, and ask if it really looks as if they are sure of their ground….

Great idea, the counter-wager. But I think they should put some real money on the line. 25K would likely get more attention. The money of course is as safe as safe can be, I’d be willing to make some sort of pledge to securitize the offer the tune of a few hundred bucks. I bet we would raise the funds easily.

Mr. Taylor’s bounty asks for evidence from “qualified” American scientists; Ms. Davis asks for evidence from “credible” American scientists. That in one word points out the crucial difference between skeptics and proponents of CAGW. Credibility speaks to belief while qualification speaks to judgement about facts.
And which camp continually runs these cheesy little games in an effort to get the public to believe their claims are right?

The James Randi Educational Foundation does challenges right. The JREF offers a $1,000,000 prize “to anyone who can show, under proper observing conditions, evidence of any paranormal, supernatural, or occult power or event.”http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/1m-challenge.html
A proper application, well stated ruled and definitions, proof of the existence of the prize money, and “[t]he JREF does not involve itself in the testing procedure, other than helping to design the protocol and approving the conditions under which a test will take place.”
Of course, no one has come close to winning the prize. 😉

As I commented at Tom Nelson’s site, the evidence “TruthMarket” wants is already at hand: the famous Doran and Zimmerman paper http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Doran_final.pdf found that only 82% of the 3,146 scientists they surveyed believed that “human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures”. I think that’s significantly less than 95%.
The problem is, I don’t have Doran and Zimmerman’s raw data, so I can’t provide the verifiable evidence. Not that I want to register myself with a site called “TruthMarket” anyway. Maybe someone else can follow up on this and win a quick $5000 (or more likely, discover how they’ve rigged the game so it can’t be won).

As I commented at Tom Nelson’s blog, the evidence “TruthMarket” seeks is already at hand: the famous Doran and Zimmerman paper http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Doran_final.pdf found that only 82% of the 3,146 scientists they surveyed believed that “human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures”.
Of course, I don’t have Doran and Zimmerman’s raw data, so I can’t provide the verifiable evidence. Not that I want to register myself at a site called “TruthMarket” anyway. Perhaps someone else can follow this up and win a quick $5,000 (or more likely, discover that the game is rigged so that it can’t be won).

My first thought is a prize for proving that a consensus has anything at all do with proving the correctness of a scientific theory. History has plenty of counterexamples.
The lady is looking for a way to certify the truth of an assertion. How about predicting it with a theory that correctly predicts other phenomena? Even then, you run the risk of falsification by yet another experiment. Is there some other way that means anything?
No matter how many learned scientists agree, nature gets the only vote that counts.

Here is my email to Ellen Davis or whoever it is at that site that has posted the bounty:
“Provide verifiable evidence that significantly less than 95% of American scientists believe in the reality of Global Climate Change and that humans are a likely cause.”
My question: “Where are the definitions of ‘verifiable,’ ‘evidence,’ ‘significantly,’ ‘believe in,’ ‘reality,’ ‘Global Climate Change,’ and ‘likely cause’?
We already know from the Zimmerman survey in 2008 of 10,257 scientists, with a participation rate of 30.7%, that 97% of a final 79 respondents believed that human activity could have an impact on a change in the global mean temperature. Compared to this, the Global Warming Petition Project has been signed by 31,487 American scientists (over 9,000 with a Ph.D.) who believe:
“There is no convincing scientific evidence that the human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth”.
Inasmuch as 31,000 American scientists is a far, far larger number than ~30.7% of 10,257 American scientists (3,146), and since 9,000 Ph.D.s is a much larger group than Doran’s 2831 Ph.D.s in his entire survey, it’s pretty well verified, at least by surveys, that significantly fewer than 95% of American scientists “believe” in Global Climate Change (if this is defined as anthropogenic global warming and/or cooling, whichever happens to be the more convenient argument to make at any particular time). By comparing self-attested belief in these global climate change matters between two groups of self-selected (in their response) American scientists, we see that almost 10 to 1 American scientists do NOT “believe” either in a danger posed by “Global Climate Change” (or else why would you even be concerned about it?) or that humans have any discernible influence. So you should really award that money to me. If Doran and Zimmerman’s 2 question survey was sufficient for the Global Climate Change folks to claim vindication of their belief regarding support among scientists, then the voluntary signature of the Global Warming Petition Project is as valid a method of demonstrating the opposite belief.
You can send me the check at my registered address on your site.

This is a truly ‘loaded’ request.
1) Who decides what constitutes ‘significantly lower’? 90%? 85%? 50%?
2) Who decides if a scientist is ‘qualified’ and what are the criteria for doing so? (esp if the ‘qualification’ is that the scientist believes that global warming is ‘real’ and caused by humans, 😉 )

The very name “Truthmarket” is a hilariously inept choice. What is it, a market where the truth is for sale? Is it a market with many brands of the truth all with different packaging? Is it a market where different truths are bought and sold as their PR “stock” increases or decreases in value?
Also, that lady is clearly a communications major. These people actually believe that it’s possible to present/summarize all information in a perfect way such that some form of ultimate truth is always conveyed to all people. They have no concept of providing access to all information and letting other people read and think for themselves.

Who cares? When I studied Physics 101 at Cavendish Labs Cambridge, nearly 70 years ago, I had hammered into my thick skull that you took minimum notice of what anyone THOUGHT. The only thing that matters is the empirical data. This lesson seems to have been completely forgotten by the warmaholics, and, unfortunately, by just about all the scientific learned societies.
Where have all the flowers gone? ……… When will they ever learn? When will they ever learn?

$5,000.00 is milk money for the people promoting the ’cause’.
Normally the value of a prize is propotaional with the effort to win, (unlike a lottery) .
I expect that it would take more than $200,000.00 just to create a list of 100% of ‘credible American scientists’. Note also that the prise is based on what the ‘credible American scientists’ ‘believe’ (faith) and not on what they can prove (science).

PaulH says:
October 2, 2012 at 12:07 pm
The James Randi Educational Foundation does challenges right….
No they don’t.
I’m too angry with Randi to trust myself to further comments here. I don’t think even William Connolley or DeSmugBlag raise my hackles quite so much. I’ve seen shown in detail, that Randi’s “prize” is every bit as phony as this latest “bounty” and unfortunately, far more publicised and innocently accepted, while causing harm to good people.

Wager or counter-wager, the best analysis of this is that it is indeed a straw man offer, full of weasel words. I’m a skeptic of CAGW and a scientist, but a glance at the thermometric record (actual aggregate data, mind you) post 1800 to the present fairly conclusively prove that the climate of the Earth is, and has been, warming, probably since the LIA, although it was (on average) cooling from the Medieval Optimum up to the LIA, and was probably sometimes warming, sometimes cooling, before that (based on proxy data, not thermometric data, and hence with correspondingly increased error bars). Indeed, one can look at the proxy-derived thermometric record of the entire current (Pliestocene) ice age and see nothing but climate change — glacial/interglacial cycles oscillating around a significant depression of the mean temperature (smoothed over 100Ky+ intervals).
So the hell with 95% — close to 100% of “all scientists” probably believe that the climate has always been changing, is changing now, and is currently at the end of a warming trend several centuries long, and if they don’t believe that it is because they are so very skeptical they doubt the actual temperature record made by good faith scientists armed with thermometers as well as any proxy derived results whatsoevere. Even though scientists are naturally skeptical, few are that skeptical.
This already negates a conjunction with a second proposition in logic. Let’s just assume that it is true that no scientist believes that the climate is stationary, and that all of them accept the thermometric record and being adequate proof that it has overall warmed since at least the early 1800s to the present. Then it is clearly impossible to find one single scientist that both believes that the climate is stationary and — fill in any proposition or its negation that you like here!
It is therefore impossible to find 5% of all scientists that believe:
a) That the climate is not changing and that the Universe is 13 billion years old. We are therefore (according to this absurd and fallacious argument) justified in claiming that 95% or more of all scientists are young earth creationists!
b) That the climate is not changing and that Earth rotates on its axis while revolving around the Sun. We therefore must agree that 95% of all scientists believe in the Geocentric model of the Universe.
c) That the climate did not warm over the last 200 years and that the theory of evolution explains the diversity of species and their process of adaptation to environmental and climate changes. We must therefore consider it a proven fact that 95% of all scientists believe in intelligent design by a sentient creator.
However, their argument is even worse than this. We’ve already established that 100% of all scientists who have any sense at all can probably read a reliably constructed empirical curve summarizing tabulated data. Their second proposition is, however, far more insidious. Having established that their conjunction cannot be falsified (so that their $5000 offer is safe) by making one element of it what amounts to an established fact, they make the second part a safely weak form of their desired conclusion: “Human activity has contributed to it”. Let’s compare two equivalent logical arguments:
“95% of all scientists believe in the law of gravitation and that the moon therefore contributes to our net apparent weight as we stand on the surface of the Earth.”
“95% of all scientists believe that the climate is generally changing/warming and that human activity has contributed to that change.”Who can argue with either one? No competent scientist, that’s for sure. I don’t know why they limited their offer to only $5000. They could have offered a full trillion dollars and their money would be as safe as if it were in the bank!
Of course, the real questions are these (in both cases):
a) What is the sign of the contribution asserted in the second statement. It could be that tidal forces/lunar gravity increases or decreases the net apparent weight of an object. It might even do both, at different times in the orbital progression of Earth and Moon (and don’t forget the Sun, and Jupiter, and everything else in the Universe with mass while we’re at it). In fact, in the case of gravity it pretty much decreases it, but that isn’t implicit in the statement and wouldn’t be even if for some reason apparent weight was trending up, e.g. the Earth’s mass was gradually increasing or the moon’s orbit was gradually increasing (decreasing the tidal decrease, on average, which is in fact the case).
b) What are the relative magnitudes of the other direct causes. In the case of the Earth and the Moon, the lunar tide makes an incredibly small correction to the overall force exerted by the direct gravitational field of the Earth alone on objects very close to its surface. In fact, if you place a massive object on even a very sensitive scale and watch the reading of that scale over 24 hours, it will be a bit of a chore to identify its tidal variation.
These are precisely the same questions a good scientist would ask in the case of a changing/warming climate and human activity contributing to the change. 100% of all scientists (or very nearly that) might well agree with both propositions but disagree, violently on the relative magnitude or even the sign of the contribution of the latter to the former. There is an entire spectrum of beliefs that fit the conditions offered in this “challenge” ranging from:
“Natural variation is responsible for almost 100% of all apparent climate change in either direction, human activity is a nearly invisible perturbation of the climate system.” (Signal is nature, noise is human activity.)
to
“Natural forces make a negligible contribution to climate variation, nearly all of the observed variability comes from human activities.” (Signal is humans, noise is nature.)
Very few scientists would agree with either of these extremes, and yet the implied conclusion of the “challenge” is that most (95% or more) of all scientists think the latter and less than 5% think the former.
What a swindle! What a pure implementation of logical fallacy in public argumentation to imply an equally pure lie!
It is, of course, child’s play to demonstrate that well over 5% of all scientists do not believe in the following proposition: Human activity is responsible for the bulk of the temperature variation observed over the last 200 years.
It is also equally easy to demonstrate that well over 5% of all scientists do not believe that future climate warming that might turn out be attributable to human activity will turn out to be catastrophic in magnitude. In fact, surveys have shown that more than 5% of climate scientists — straight up members of the AGU or AMA — explicitly agree with the assertion that human activity (including a hypothetical doubling of CO_2 over the next 90 years) will lead to no significant warming at all, and over half agreed with the assertion that the warming would not be catastrophic. But that survey, sadly, would not prove sufficient to contradict the carefully crafted weaselry of the purely political and unwinnable challenge.
All I can do is ask the challengers the following, utterly simple, yes/no question: Do you still beat your monkeys?
One good fallacy deserves another.
rgb

“believe in the reality of global climate change and that humans are a likely cause”
Since the majority of Sceptics believe that global climate change is real and that carbon dioxide contributes to global warming, the whole thing is pointless. Furthermore “believe” and “likely” are not words which reflect scientific evidence.
There are only two questions to answer which this pretend challenge does not cover:
1. How significant is carbon dioxide to global warming?
2. Will it lead to catastrophic global warming?
This is nothing more than a red herring to divert attention from the scientific evidence that fails to support the Warmista position

It’s a trick question: “the reality of global climate change and that humans are a likely cause.” Very few will question the fact that our planet is CONSTANTLY in a state of climate change, and very few would deny the idea that humans are TO SOME MICROSCOPIC DEGREE AT LEAST “a likely cause” of part of that.
Their INTENT is for the casual reader to read that part of the challenge as this:
“the reality of DISASTROUS global climate change and that humans are a MAJOR cause.”
I would turn this campaign back around on them just as I do with antismoking campaigners: ask them if they would support the challenge in the second format… and if they DON”T accept that, then it’s clear evidence that THEY don’t believe that:
“95% of credible American scientists believe in the reality of disastrous global climate change and that humans are a major cause.”
While I’m not familiar enough with the playing field to really know how it would turn out, my guess is that a secret-ballot type survey of “credible scientists” regarding the second phrasing would turn out considerably different — and probably on the side of the skeptics.
– MJM

Why is WUWT drawing attention to drivel like this? Once again, it is irrelevant what these wackos think or say.
Unfortunately, WUWT, by virtue of being one of the highest profile science blogs, is giving credibility to kids.
This is nearly as dumb as the President of the United States of America making a lot of noise about some irrelevant wacko making stupid youtube movies….oops been there done that!

Here is my submission:
96% of Scientist DON’T believe in Man Made Global Warming
You might be surprised to hear this if all you listen to is the mainstream press. Every time you hear a story on global warming you hear the phrase “almost all scientists agree” or “97% of scientist believe in global warming.” Last year a study came out saying 97% of scientists believe in climate change, but almost the exact opposite is true.http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/22/evidence-for-a-consensus-on-climate-change/
The study in question surveyed 1,372 known working climate researchers. and found 97% of them still believe in global warming.
The key here is they surveyed “climate researchers” or scientists who get paid to study “Global Warming” which is a conflict of interest. That’s like asking PETA members if they’re vegetarian, but regardless we will use their number.
On the other hand the Petition Project has 31,000 American scientists who have signed a petition saying that they don’t believe in manmade global warming. The challenge said “Amercian scientists” the 97% study doesn’t say which country they are from.http://www.petitionproject.org/signers_by_state_main.php
So let’s do the math 97% of 1,372 is 1,330 who still believe in global warming compared to 31,487 who don’t. That’s only 1 out 24 or 4% of scientists who still believe in global warming, which means 96% of scientists DON’T believe in Man MadeGlobal Warming
Please make the check out to Elmer Beauregard

“TruthMarket’s ultimate goal is to predispose all public dialogue toward truth telling.”
How very very sweet From looking at their website, the name can easily be explained. The truth is for sale up there.
I searched for “Libya”.
“No campaigns were found matching your search terms.”

The trouble alarmists have is that what they are doing is nothing new, and most thinking people have learned from history to be sceptical of all forms of alarmism. The history books are packed with examples of crap science that turned out to be bullshit. We all know about eugenics. We know abut the Gulag in the Soviet Union that would see a person incarcerated in a labour camp for expressing the wrong political or social opinion. We know about the Emperors New Clothes. We know about Jones and his ilk, and their “25 years invested” in a theory. We see and hear the “D” word and we smell fascism. Alarmism, like socialism, is nothing more than a fragile house of cards propped up by despots and idiots.

This (the truthless marketing $5000 wager with the undefined and likely movable goalposts) looks smells and sounds like a grade school double-dare sucker bet.
That is, this isn’t about $5000. It is about having people serve up on a silver platter, lists of scientists that the eco-nazis can harrass.
Don’t do it!

In some ways the alarmist campaign is brilliant. Calling people ‘deniers’ seems like part of a strategy of turning the debate from one of degree (how much warming?) to an absolute (does warming happen?). This moves it from a debate almost impossible to win to one almost impossible to lose, as the opposition fall over themselves fighting to shred their own credibility in defence of their right to be a ‘denier’ – one who denies any possibility of AGW.
In truth, ‘deniers’ are not a big threat to the team, they are useful propaganda tools for them. ‘Deniers’ really threaten climate realists by allowing the debate to be sucessfully diverted in that way.
If you folks really want to give the team a hard time, become luke-warmists: “Yes, of course, CO2 is a greenhouse gas, and human emissions increase it. The rate of warming is about 2 K per doubling of CO2. That isn’t enough to matter economically. Can I have my $6 Trillion back please?”

TruthMarket, a division of Truth Seal Corp., today announced that registered member, Ellen Davis, launched a campaign challenging climate change deniers to prove that more than 5% of credible American scientists dispute global warming or that it is likely caused by humans. The first person who can deliver verifiable evidence that significantly fewer than 95% of qualified American scientists believe in the reality of global climate change and that humans are a likely cause will win the $5,000 bounty.
Uh … I believe in “the reality of global climate change, and that humans are a likely cause.”
On the other hand, I also “dispute global warming or that it is likely caused by humans.”
We credible scientists refer to this as “a methodological problem”.

Money talks. And, I don’t mean the 5k prize money on either side. Every qualified Climate Scientist has to make a living. He/She has a mortgage, kids, a spouse and Ph.D. lifestyle to support. That depends on those multi million dollar research grants from the federal government. And, that money only goes to those whose research supports anthropogenic global warming. So when a survey comes, they have to vote with their billfolds. The power of money has bought off good science and it will buy this contest result as well. We are on the side of poor David in a battle with a well funded Goliath. I give my highest respect to Joseph Bast and James Taylor….but….

Truth by popular vote. The definition of “truth” has been changed to the same definition as “science”: Whatever we can talk gullible people into.
None of this is surprising. Dr. Oz has the Long Island Medium on his show. One of the Doctors told kindergarteners you diabetes from eating sugar. There is no interest whatsoever in truth in any of these “scientists” lives. This about money and fame and who cares what damage is done.
There is very little science today–most is just propaganda. Science takes work and time, neither of which is popular in a society ruled by Twitter.

PaulH says:
October 2, 2012 at 12:07 pm
The James Randi Educational Foundation does challenges right. The JREF offers a $1,000,000 prize “to anyone who can show, under proper observing conditions, evidence of any paranormal, supernatural, or occult power or event.”http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/1m-challenge.html
A proper application, well stated ruled and definitions, proof of the existence of the prize money, and “[t]he JREF does not involve itself in the testing procedure, other than helping to design the protocol and approving the conditions under which a test will take place.”
Of course, no one has come close to winning the prize. 😉

Of course you know that Randi and Co. have completely swallowed the Gorebull and are a bunch of hot earthers. They are acolytes in the church of AGW.
As such, their credibility is more than just suspect.

Hmm, “$5,000 Bounty for Proof that More than 5% of Credible American Scientists Dispute Global Climate Change”, eh?
Well, we know that there are 31,000 plus Petition Project scientists, all American and working in climate-related fields by definition, who do not believe in CAGW. 5% is 1 out of 20, which leaves 19 out of 20. So really, the onus is on them to find more than19x as many “credible” American scientists – more than 589,000 American scientists who do believe in it and are prepared to put it on public record like the 31,000+, otherwise we have our 5% and more.
Bluff called, ye blackguards. Let’s see your list of 589,000 plus believers, or you can put $5k in Anthony’s tip jar in my name.

This argument can be easily won by referencing the 31 thousand scientists against the 77 .. Imaging the negative publicity they would get if they said no. They will look like complete plonkers because they would have to state that every single person on the list of 31,000 are not credible scientists…

“a likely cause.”
Instead of “the likely cause” they intentionally use “a likely cause,” something almost no one disagrees with. The issue is the magnitude of CO2 contribution, not whether all of man’s activities have any effect (even unmeasurable) on climate whatsoever.

This sounds like a tough way to get a $5000 grant.
If it had been $500,000 for ‘saying some stuff, about stuff, but make the stuff REALLY scary’ we would have not been able to beat the warmists off with a sh!tty stick

“provide verifiable evidence that significantly less than 95% of credible American scientists believe in the reality of global climate change and that humans are a likely cause.”
This is a double barreled question and if this is how the question is asked in the survey it will make all responses unreliable. Anyone with any professional experience in the design of surveys should know this. I have serious doubts that her contest will produce any credible results.
All that aside, what does consensus have to do with science or proof. These activists still don’t get it. They are the true deniers, deniers of the scientific method and deniers of physical evidence.

To be fair, the OISM Petition did not take the position that human activity has zero effect. The 31,487 scientists and engineers co-signed a statement specifically affirming that more CO2 is harmless, and beneficial:

The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind.
There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the forseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth. [source]

Anthony,
I think we can win this, citing the Doran “97%” paper as evidence.
Doran didn’t get to 97% except by restricting the results to criteria much tighter than “credible American Scientists”.
The two questions here replicate Doran’s two celebrated questions. Only 90% of the original “qualified scientists” agreed with Doran’s first question, and only 80% agreed with the second. The only thing that remains is restrict Doran’s data to American scientists. He recorded IP addresses for each response to prevent duplicate responses, so that is doable.
Get Doran’s data, and collect $5K.

I like the Heartland’s response, I like it very much. Of course, Truthmarket will never hand out the prize, they don’t intend to do so. No proof will ever be enough for them, they can always bend rules to their favor.

Call their bluff and if they don’t pay up, take her to small claims court (you’re not allowed to use an attorney in small claims court). I would think that the vagueness of the wording of the contest would work against her, based on contract law. And if people in multiple jurisdictions claimed the prize, Ms. Davis could quickly find herself a very busy lady.

Sure, Heartland has a point in the orignal bounty posing the wrong question. But everybody making offers including Heartland lost me at what scientists believe. It’s what science says and what it does not say. Keep the belief out of questions concerning science. If the science is uncertain, that is primary. Their belief is worth much less than their science and some of their science is worthless to start with because some of them do a bad job of keeping the two separate.
This is not a group of experts with provable knowledge that a very bad thing will happen if we don’t do a thing and that it will be avoided if we do another thing. There was an article posted somewhere recently about some (Danish?) research studying melting patterns in Greenland. Their study reportedly concluded that the cyclical patterns of freezing and thawing suggested that it could be centuries before the ice caps were largely melted. They are part of the consensus of some warming and some human element. Centuries, plural, if at all, GREENland and much much more study needed are things for the consensus bearers to keep in mind. The word does not mean what they think it means.
Was the original challenge mimicking Steve Milloy’s challenge of a few years ago offering $100,000 to anyone who could put CAGW into a testable hypothesis? The money was available, but went unclaimed

Well, technically it should get sent to the people who conducted the actual surveys, including:
“In 2007, Harris Interactive surveyed 489 randomly selected members of either the American Meteorological Society or the American Geophysical Union for the Statistical Assessment Service (STATS) at George Mason University. The survey found 97% agreed that global temperatures have increased during the past 100 years; 84% say they personally believe human-induced warming is occurring, and 74% agree that “currently available scientific evidence” substantiates its occurrence. Only 5% believe that human activity does not contribute to greenhouse warming; and 84% believe global climate change poses a moderate to very great danger.[107] [108]” (Wikipedia quote).
Note that 5% of climate scientists (or at least, people working more or less directly in climate science) do not believe that human activity has contributed to greenhouse warming. They also chose to state the 84% figure, but stated the other way, 16% of them do not believe global climate change poses any threat at all!. If you include the statistic that they did not include, it is also true that over half of them think that global climate change is not a very great danger, that at most it is a moderate danger — damaging in some ways, perhaps, but not “catastrophic”. And this is without any real acknowledgement that there might actually be benefits to a warmer world, or a world that doesn’t re-enter an era of glaciation, or a world that provides the poorest people on the planet with the energy they need to live the life that we in the developed world take for granted.
Is this study “reproducible”? Only if you thing that a University stats department with no dog in the race is likely to be competent. Do they deserve the $5000? Of course not — not unless somebody is willing to sue them to get it, because (as noted above) they carefully framed the problem so it was impossible for them to fail, mirroring the two stupid questions that have been used to state utterly fallacious conclusions in the two question survey that originally gave rise to the “95%” assertion.
A lawsuit might be interesting, though. At the very least, it would force them to confront the fact that numerous surveys show that not even climate scientists are 95% in agreement with CAGW, or convinced of AGW itself. I would agree that there is a consensus that climate change is occurring (well, duh!). I think that there is a majority belief (if that matters) that at least part of that is due to anthropogenic influences. There is wide disagreement as to how large the latter is compared to the scale of natural variation, and whether or not it is likely to lead to a “catastrophe”.
rgb

Count me! I am a scientist, and I meet the above criteria…
“5. Do you have university level training in the physical sciences that enable you to technically understand the principles of atmospheric physics or climatology?
6. Do you have university level training or industry-relevant expertise in computer modelling sufficient to technically understand the results of IPCC climate modelling?”
I do believe in climate change, and that humans have some effect.
But there is no catastrophe coming due to CO2 emissions. The climate sensitivity the IPCC uses with all its unproven positive feed-backs is way over stated, it is probably 0.8-1.5 per doubling, not 3-6. Most climate activism is political to enact global carbon taxes to benefit the bankers and UN to implement their agenda 21.
If we are warming, that is on balance a good thing, and we may be cooling or soon cooling, I hope the next ice age is not soon.

Heartland needs to offer a reward to anyone who can produce any paper or even a non peer reviewed article or dissertation which proves the greenhouse theory and AGW.
To my knowledge there isn’t anything like this after a hundred or more years of navel gazing.

This strikes me as a thinly veiled attempt to generate media coverage for Hayes-Roth’s dismal looking website and book. According to her LinkedIn profile, Davis was a sociology major and works at a Bay Area firm that provides “strategic financial and media relations counsel to growth companies.” She doesn’t understand the science herself, but happily labels those who take issue with the consensus viewpoint as deniers while describing “the average US citizen” as “confused or ignorant of what the scientific community thinks about climate change.”
There is also an Ellen Davis who appears to be an active member of the San Francisco chapter of the Sierra Club. I don’t know if they are one in the same person, but I think it would be a fair question to ask of Ms. Davis. With a 2012 budget in the 100 million USD range, I’m sure 5K could probably be dug out from between the sofa cushions at the local chapter office.
This TruthMarket stunt has odious troll written all over it. Refuse to engage, deprive it of oxygen, and let it wither up and die.

rgbatduke, “Even though scientists are naturally skeptical, few are that skeptical.,” unless they’ve read the few published studies of the systematic measurement error produced by in-field temperature sensors; land T and SST.

They are known liars and therefore will just lie about their lies when they are shown to be liars,..and then lie about the lies about their lies, and so on ad infinitum.
Fool me once, shame on you,…you know the rest…

(I’m hiding behind the couch…)
It looks like I may have touched a nerve with some WUWT commentators when I mentioned the James Randi challenge in the context of this article.
Let me state for the record that I have no association or dealings with the JREF, other than having read Randi’s book “Flim Flam” some years ago. People more familiar with Randi may have valid concerns with the way he operates, but it’s not my purpose to defend him or promote his foundation.
I remembered some of the parameters of his challenge to those who promote silly paranormal cures, ESP, magic powers, etc. from his book and the JREF web site. It seems to me that a challenge (like the Truthmarket campaign above) should have some formal process of applying and well defined terms and conditions, and the Randi challenge seems like a valid template.
That was all I meant — nothing deeper.
(Back behind the couch…)

When you have a name like “TruthMarket” there is a good indicator that this has nothing to do with truth or the open and free exchange of ideas. You find the Ministry of Truth in George Orwell’s 1984, which was about propaganda. He was merely parodying the ideas that were around in the 1930s. Now you have blogs called “Desmogblog”, “Open Mind” and “Real Science” and “Skeptical Science”. All use the words when they preach the opposite. Any objective person reading them, and comparing with genuine skeptical sites like this one, Jo Nova and Climate Audit will know that they parody the true meaning of the words almost as the “Ministry of Truth.”

TruthMarket isn’t really interested in the truth. I notice that they have challenges to prove opposite conclusions. (genetically modified food is safe/is not safe). It appears to be a site similar to polldaddy.com, surveymonkey.com, pollcode.com and a host of others where you can set up your own poll to prove anything you want. The failings of the challenge and the create your own poll sites is that they utilize the logical fallacy Argumentum ad populum, otherwise known as the Bandwagon fallacy.
Just because the majority of people believe something is or is not does not mean that they are correct. Examples: The majority of the medical profession refused for nearly a half a century to believe that pellagra, beriberi, and rickets were caused by vitamin decencies; the majority of the medical profession believed that ulcers were cause by stress, it was only until nearly the end of the 20th century that it was accepted that ulcers were caused by a bacteriological infection; and worst of all in terms of human toll the majority of the anthropological profession believed that black Africans and Australian aborigines were the missing link between man and no better than the ape. Thus the government of Australia in the early and mid Nineteenth Century passed laws authorizing whites to kill on sight any and all aborigines. History is replete with examples of where the majority is wrong and in most cases someone suffers because of it.
Our founding fathers feared majority rule and set up our government to limit the tyranny of the majority as much as they could.

The AGW Creed
appointed to be read at all environmental conferences
I believe in Global Warming,
which will destroy heaven and earth unless we change our ways.
I believe in Al Gore,
Who conceived the Internet
and the hockey-stick graph, born of Professor Mann.
It suffered under McIntyre and McKitrick,
was crucified, disproven, and was buried.
It was cast on the reject pile.
On the third day It rose again.
It was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science,
and is displayed in a prominent position in all IPCC literature.
It will apply again as soon as global temperatures start rising.
I believe in the CO2 tipping point,
the IPCC Assessment Reports,
a CO2 sensitivity figure of about 3 W/sq M,
the accuracy of GCMS,
an anthropic cause for all climate variation after 1970,
and grants everlasting.
AMEN.

We should take every opportunity to hammer home the fact that skeptics neither deny the existence of climate change, nor question whether or not humans are contributing to it. Both are established facts. We only question two things:
1. How much of the current climate change is due to natural variation, and how much is anthropogenic?
2. Will the anthropogenic contribution result in climate catastrophes?
WUWT should counter TruthMarket’s bounty with a $25,000,000 reward to anyone who can provide reproducible empirical data that conclusively attributes 90% of the warming since 1885 to human emitted CO2. Like the bounty offered by TruthMarket, it’s certain that it will never be collected.

Davis is correct about one thing—there are indeed climate “deniers”. And these “deniers” will be the first to deny the catastrophic falsehoods climate scientists spew about the climate.
However, when normal climate is discussed, those “deniers” are instant “skeptics”, for that is the true and proper roll of any scientist, regardless of the field.
What Davis misses is the real reason only 13% of Americans believe in their fanciful hypotheses—she is obviously not a truth seeker herself but would rather blame level-headed people rather than the perpetrators of the lies regarding climate catastrophism.
(It is absolutely laughable that the “deniers” spend more money in this battle—does she really think Big Oil actually employs us like Media Matters employs shills for the Democrats? Truth is priceless and worth far, far more than what “(catastrophic) climate scientists” are peddling.)

RERT says:
October 2, 2012 at 1:26 pm
If you folks really want to give the team a hard time, become luke-warmists: “Yes, of course, CO2 is a greenhouse gas, and human emissions increase it. The rate of warming is about 2 K per doubling of CO2.
=====================================
You missed a bit:
… before taking feedbacks into account. Empirical evidence and logic both show that feedbacks are predominantly negative and that the actual rate of warming is considerably less than that.

cognitive is the operative word:
1978: Cognitive processes in planning : a report / Barbara Hayes-Roth, Frederick Hayes-Roth ; prepared for the Office of Naval Researchhttp://trove.nla.gov.au/work/8636197?versionId=9984627
Frederick is Rick:
Wikipedia: Rick Hayes-Roth
Frederick Hayes-Roth (born 1947) is an American computer scientist and educator.
He was the Chief Technology Officer for Software at Hewlett-Packard from 2000-2001…
In 2011, Hayes-Roth co-founded Truth Seal Corporation, a non-profit, in a response to the glut of information that makes it difficult to judge the veracity of information…http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Hayes-Roth
on anthony’s link to rick hayes-roth, there is also a friend “nathan
hayes-roth”. on this hayes-roth page, u have rick, nathan and a nora
hayes-roth, Title Co-founder, Former Secretary and Treasurer at TruthSeal
Corp, plus an aaron hayes-roth (all SF, and UCLA connections):
Linkedin: Hayes-Rothhttp://www.linkedin.com/pub/dir/+/Hayes-Roth
Nora, Nathan & Aaron Hayes-Roth childhood education? all mentioned in here:
Directed Improvisation by Computer Characters
Barbara Hayes-Roth, Lee Brownston, and Erik Sincoff
Knowledge Systems Laboratory
Stanford University
multiple references at bottom show a B. and an F. Hayes-Roth (Barbara & Frederick, i.e. Rick)http://reference.kfupm.edu.sa/content/d/i/directed_improvisation_by_computer_chara_120222.pdf
could this be?
Ellen Davis & Aaron Hayes-roth
Wedding Date: May 5, 2012http://registrychest.com/wedding-registry/ellen-davis-aaron-hayes-roth/

All of this reminds me of Keynes’ analogy of a beauty pageant to describe the action of rational participants in market – “It is not a case of choosing those [faces] that, to the best of one’s judgment, are really the prettiest, nor even those that average opinion genuinely thinks the prettiest. We have reached the third degree where we devote our intelligences to anticipating what average opinion expects the average opinion to be. And there are some, I believe, who practice the fourth, fifth and higher degrees.” (Keynes, General Theory of Employment Interest and Money, 1936).

Don’t know why skeptics would want to play their game with ill defined terms. A credible climatologist – does one exist these days? Five grand – truly laughable lack of confidence given they have all the nebulous, wordy escape hatches primed.
Keep hammering the unscientific nature of such surveys; science by survey is political science and not orthodox science. Science by stifling discussion on science is not science. Science by alarmism and exaggeration is not science. Settled science is an oxymoron. Their greatest scientist is Al Gore. Together with Mann and Hansen they are the best salespeople I’ve witnessed: true pachyderms.
Perhaps there should be a counter proposal that offers a big prize of say $1 million to the first person who can show that CAGW holds using the scientific method with clearly defined, falsifiable hypothesis.
That ought keep warmistas chasing their tails for a few more millennia. Either way the gravy train just keeps on rolling.

I recommend everyone visit their site. They have several campaigns profiled on their home page.
One is a campaign to prove that genetically modified foods are dangerous.
And another one, also on the home page, is to prove that genetically modified foods are safe.
Plus they have the audacity to ask for donations to fund BOTH campaigns.
Want to discredit these guys? Point to that! They actually don’t care one way or the other on ANY issue. They most likely take a “cut” of any funds raised in the campaign section, and the bounty section is made up of similar statements to the climate bounty (that is, worded such that they are impossible to collect).

They’d better watch out – it may not take as many as they think to upset their consensus cart.
For every credible scientist we find that disputes global warming or that it is likely caused by humans, they’ve got to find 19.
They’re trying to narrow the field by stating “qualified AMERICAN scientists”. And it will be them who determine the “qualifications”. There are quite a few non-American scientists that could be used.
We’re still trying to get them to answer a question – what fields can they draw from for “qualification” – do fields like math, physics and geology, count? How about English Lit? Or
If they trot out Bill McKibben or Al Gore as one of their “qualified American scientists”, they’ve lost already.

Have to watch words carefully. Yes, we all believe that the planet is warming if that is what you mean by global warming. Is it caused by humans? Yes, humans have helped to warm the planet with land use changes and with their use of heating and air conditioning. Is global warming caused by C02? C02 may warm the planet by 1 to 2 degrees C. Will the C02 caused portion of the warming be catastrophic? NO, it will be helpful. I doubt if there are many scientists who would not agree with the above.

Back in 2007, a media analysis team headed by Kepplinger and Post published a report in Germany with an article in Die Welt titled “Die Klimaforscher sind sich längst nicht sicher” (Climate scientists are far from certain). The published report is titled “Klimakatastrophe oder Katastrophenklima? – Die Berichterstattung über den Klimawandel aus Sicht der Klimaforscher” (Climate Catastrophe or Catastrophe Climate? – Reporting on climate change from the perspective of climate scientists)
About 160 renowned German climate scientists were sent questionaires which over 120 returned, completed. Some who failed to answer, responded that they were either no longer in the field or admitted that they had no relevant expertise. Kepplinger has the survey questions and results online.
The resopnses to the survery show that scepticism is rife amongst German climate scientists. i.e. most of them are still thinking like scientists. IIRC, something like 97% weren’t certain of some aspect. Somewhat disturbingly, only a small number recognize that it’s impossible to model the climate system to produce meaningful results. OTOH: 74% recognized that the capability of climate models is largely exaggerated in the media.
It’s all in German, but it illustrates a more rigourous approach to surveying the opinions of people than the “never mind the quality, feel the width” approach of Skip Lewandowsky, et. al.

Dang it! Further to that previous media research…
Here’s a useful English summary at the end of an article published in FOMA (Forschungsmagazin) Research magazine of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz.

According to the majority of German climate scientists, media coverage on global warming has had a strong impact on the distribution of research grants and on the scientific process in climate science. Research on human influences on climate change
and on climate modelling has profited most from media impact whereas research on the natural variability and on climate history has profited only little.
However, the opinions of climate scientists who question the quality of data, theories and models (sceptical observers) and of climate scientists who believe in the quality of data, theories and models (devoted alarmists) partly contradict each other. In the sceptics’ views, climate modelling profits from the impact of media coverage at the expense of paleoclimatology. In the devoted alarmists´ views both climate modelling and research on the anthropogenic influences profit from media impact on climate research.
Nevertheless, even the majority of the devoted alarmists indicate that the mass media present a misleading picture of climate research. From these data one can conclude that the scientific process of climate science is driven by a non-academic force which lacks scientific quality and reduces its autonomy.

They offer a piddly $5K??? That is lame beyond pathetic! And the ‘bounty’ is offered to prove the negative of what ‘credible climate scientists believe’ about man made global warming?!!
Chicken $hit…..

Seems like this is very soon going to be exposed as the liberal circle-jerk that it is. TruthMarket apparently “opened for business” on Sept 10. Chris Mooney was already advocating for it by Sept 15. That should tell you something right there. Nice little incestuous club that’s posing as an independent fact-checking, or “truth seeking” type organization. Let’s see, maybe I’ll get my sister-in-law to post the first online campaign – so that it looks legit.
While I’d like to make the analogy that the warmists and their willing enviro-liberal minions are circling the wagons, that would be a defensive strategy. What we’re seeing here is a well coordinated offensive attack, where they’re trying to inundate all avenues with a bunch of propaganda disguised as legitimate unbiased information. But this strategy is so transparent to anyone not in their camp already that it’s just sad. Really sad.

It would not be unreasonable to define the word ‘credible’.
In my book, to be credible that means it has to be someone without a vested interest in the outcome. I think that excludes just about every ‘climate scientist’, as they are almost all funded by government, or quasi-government, organisations, which means they have a strong vested interest in maintaining/promoting a situation whereby they keep their jobs and comfortable lifestyles.

Day By Day says:
October 2, 2012 at 11:21 pm
Truth market owes Joseph Bast $5000 for his “You Call This Consensus?” published in July of 201–How dumb is that to do a contest that was already won? More than a year before you have the contest?
=========================
Joe has to pay his $250 processing fee first.

As a self confessed warmist I agree we really shoot ourselves in the foot with nonsense challenges like this. I could weep, I really could. If I marked such a proposal from a student I would be either seriously concerned about our teaching of various survey methodologies, or I would assume the student had not understood a word of what they had been taught. The only saving grace for me is that the response question is just as flawed, though I accept it may be tongue in cheek.

@James Sexton
“Holy hell? “FEE FOR PROCESSING A CHALLENGE TO THIS BOUNTY $250.00″”
I don’t know what the law is like in the US, but in the UK and Europe charging for entry like this would bring it into the legal definition of a competition. This sort of thing is tightly controlled in Europe, because it’s a common way to run a scam or an illegal lottery. So if you want to do it you have to submit a set of rules for your competition to a body like the ‘Lottery Commission’, and show that you have an independent set of invigilators and auditors so that all submissions can be tracked and any winners are not connected with the organisers in any way.
If the only rules are those shown they would fail at the first hurdle. In fact, it would already be illegal to do what they have done – advertise for money without specifying what it is that you get in return.
Interesting that they only need 20 entrants to break even…. but I recommend that someone looks up the relevant US lottery, competition and fair trading laws. Charging for entry makes this a whole new ball-game….

I think they need to be pinned down on exactly what they mean. In the UK, it is popular to bet on the outcome of a white christmas. This is defined as at least 1 inch of snow lying on the roof of the London weather centre on Christmas day. Thus, there is an exact measure to tell us if we have won or not.
They need to define “credible scientist”. Is that based on a list of credible scientists, do they have to have a minimum qualification, have published a minimum number of peer reviewed papers. They should tell us.
They need to define what they mean by “the reality of climate change.” Do they mean only anthropogenic climate change? If so, why add the qualifier “and humans are the likely cause”? If they mean simply the belief that climate has changed, then they should be clear on this.
Next, they need to define “humans are the likely cause.” What level of probability do they mean by “likely”? >66%?, 90%?
They need to tell us.
They need to be made to define it like the white christmas bet. My bet is they won’t, because it will expose the whole thing as an exercise in constructing a straw man. However, if enough people ask, and the information is not forthcoming, or so fudged as to be meaningless, then that would be a good PR rebutal for the skeptics.

“To win the $5,000 bounty, a campaign challenger must provide verifiable evidence that significantly less than 95% of credible American scientists believe in the reality of global climate change and that humans are a likely cause.”
This of course fails Carl Sagan’s “Baloney Detection Kit”http://www.planetforlife.com/aboutpfl/baloney.html
“appeal to ignorance — the claim that whatever has not been proved false must be true, and vice versa.”
The alarmist can’t prove 95% of credible American scientists believe in the reality of global climate change and that humans are a likely cause. They have tried with their faulty surveys, but as we all know failed miserably.
So of course now they ask the skeptics to prove it’s false and if we can’t it must be true.
How about if the Vatican gives a reward to anyone who proves God doesn’t exist.
Make it a billion dollars.

Maybe we misread these truthy people, the $250 entry fee puts a very different slant on their actions,is the money running out so now they must milk the gullible for all they can get?
Justthinkin. Pravda covered the CRU emails more honestly and in a far more timely fashion than CBC ,The Constantly Biased Corporation, did.

Here’s a comment I made here almost a week ago. I think portions of it are relevant to this challenge, as I’ll discuss at the bottom:
========================
I think some good progress can be made in the “survey” field. Here’s what I suggest:
1. Find some sort of neutral/authoritative body to do the survey, in order to encourage participation — and by both sides. And have various pooh-bahs speak out urging members to participate.
2. Have experts in survey technique critique the proposed survey first.
3. Survey segments of scientists separately, and restrict the set of questions asked to the most pertinent ones for that group. For instance,

• Survey the 75 Believer scientists in the 97% survey, or the signers of the Copenhagen Declaration.
• Or survey the members of the committees of scientific societies that issued endorsements of AGW.
• Or survey authors of chapters in the NIPCC, and/or the curators of skeptical blog sites.
• Or survey “Fellows” (distinguished members) of scientific societies with some relation to climate.

Focusing on such small groups will make it easier to get high participation rates. It will also make it easier to get the job done, if there isn’t a lot of funding provided. IOW, each group can be surveyed in turn, which is a manageable task.
4. Avoid a do-all, too-long survey. Instead, conduct multiple surveys of the same group. One survey might ask about beliefs. (E.g., “What credence do you give to the temperature record portrayed by the hockey stick?”) Another might be a timed knowledge-test about climate-related matters. Another might be a timed test of awareness of what the each side has to say about the other side’s contentions and rebuttals. Another might be about what sort of adaptive or mitigative measures they recommend, and how practical they think such measures are.
5. Perhaps conduct follow-up interviews to flesh out the survey’s findings.
PS: Maybe the Inter-Academy Council could oversee the surveying.
====================
Here’s what I suggest. Survey the “Fellows” (elite 2%) of ONE scientific society. (Maybe the Am. Physics Society, with the help of ex-Fellow Will Happer to get the leadership to cooperate with the survey and encourage participation.) Being Fellows takes care of their being credible scientists.
Don’t worry about the way the question is set up to deliver a 95% or more Yes vote. (It reads, “… believe in the reality of global climate change and that humans are a likely cause.”) Let Truthmarket “win” that one. Instead, ask additional questions that put that Yes response in perspective. I.e., that make it clear that it only deals with AGW, when the real issue is CAGW. When this result is publicized, it will demolish the effectiveness of the “97% consensus” claim.
Let Truthmarket win its “challenge”–since by doing so its irrelevance and sophistry will be exposed.
Participants should be asked to participate in a follow-up survey in six months or a year, after they have read specific advocacy material submitted by both sides of the debate. If there is a shift towards a contrarian position in the second survey, that will be another win for our side.

PS: The reading material for participants in the follow-up survey could be supplemented by access to a moderated online Q-and-A site where advocates of both positions would respond to questions posed by Fellows. And perhaps rebut the other side’s “answers.”

The Anderegg survey, Expert credibility in climate change, is all the proof that’s required.
Out of 1372 they found 903 convinced (66%) and 472 unconvinced (34%)
They didn’t claim the 472 were not credible but just that the 903 were more credible ( according to their criteria)
So there it stands, only 66% are convinced, 29% below the requirement to win the money.
Even Oreskes only came up with 75% agreeing with the consensus position.
The alarmists often use the statement “Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position.” to prove that in fact Oreskes had 100% as none of the papers disagreed, which is of course ludicrous logic. Anderegg alone proves alarmists cannot claim 100% for the Oreskes study for the simple fact they found 34% unconvinced.

The reason that nobody will take up their challenge is that their twinned premises are both true. They’re simply irrelevant to the question of whether or not CAGW is correct. Do over 95% of American scientists believe in the reality of climate change? They don’t even specify a time interval. I am an American Scientist and (not being an idiot) I believe that there was a hell of a real climate change at the end of the Wisconsin period of glaciation, all the way across the brief warm stretch ending at the Younger Dryas, and into the beginning of the Holocene. Add any statement you like to the conjunctive clause of this hypothesis and you won’t be able to find 5% that think that this statement is false and anything else, because the statement is true. Climate change is real. That’s what’s so insidious about it — they removed the “anthropogenic” from the term and hence made their “challenge” impossible for them to lose.
But the “anthropogenic” will naturally make its way back into the discussion the minute the “challenge” is used to push a political point of view.
The second clause is just as insidious, although not likely to be quite as universally accepted as truth. Have humans been a likely cause? Note well the emphasized word — by implication there are many causes of global climate change (as an established fact). Do any real scientists wish to assert that humans have had zero impact on global climate? How can science prove a negative, especially in the field that discovered Chaos theory and invented the term “butterfly effect”.
Every time I fart, I conceivably have an impact on global climate in a decade. That’s the way chaos works. The farther out you go, the greater the (possible) impact. I’m human, as are my farts. Consequently I must agree that their second assertion is almost certainly true, and in any event is impossible to falsify since they set no lower bound on what constitutes a cause (one out of many) and to make it even more ridiculous, slip the word “likely” in. That means I don’t even have to think that human activity has had an impact, I just have to think that there is some reasonable chance that it has had an impact, where the impact could be positive or negative, anything but zero, no limitations on magnitude.
If there were a hope of winning the challenge the way it is framed, I’d spot the $250 on the chance to win the $5000 on the basis of all sorts of studies, but as it is the two statements are undeniably true. And they only need one of the two to be true even then to deny you the money! So even if you think human haven’t had any impact, and think you could find 5% or more American scientists who agree, you’d still fail because, hey, we’re in the interglacial of an ice age. The Holocene is happening. Global climate change is real, and indeed never stops.
It’s Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming caused specifically by Anthropogenic CO_2 as a greenhouse gas that not even 95% of actual climate scientists agree with. But they didn’t issue a challenge there, did they? Oooo, they’re wily…
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There are a lot of comments that I haven’t read, so this may have already been mentioned, but since when does truth depend on the number of people who believe it? Doesn’t it only take one scientist with evidence to be right? Isn’t “consensus” a political term and not a scientific term? Isn’t skepticism valued in science? Did something happen to the scientific method that I was taught in my grade school days?

patriotpilgrim says:
October 3, 2012 at 8:28 pm
Search the phrase Post-Normal Science on the home page of this website. You will read arguments for and against by people more educated on the subject than I.

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